


Take me home

by jamlockk



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Bullying, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes Feels, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes, Self-Esteem Issues, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5805418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamlockk/pseuds/jamlockk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Mycroft took Sherlock home, and one time John did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take me home

**Take me home**

**1.**

He was my best friend. He went everywhere with me, he didn't care what I said, just that I was with him. He knew when I needed to run and jump and climb and investigate, and he knew when I needed to just sit, still and silent. He knew when I just needed a cuddle. He'd snuggle in beside me, under the covers, and I'd bury my face in his fur, and he'd help to block out the rush of noise in my head. 

Mycroft understood. He'd tut disapprovingly when he caught me feeding Redbeard scraps of my dinner under the table, but he never let on. 

When me and Redbeard would play pirates in the garden in the summer, my dog chasing me round and round the bushes and flowers, Mycroft would look up from his books just long enough to roll his eyes at me. I'd stick out my tongue and Redbeard would lick me, and I'd shriek with delight and giggle at the feel of his tongue on my face. I never saw Redbeard give Mycroft doggy kisses. Pity. His face would've been really funny. 

I wanted to take Redbeard with me to school but Mycroft said I couldn't. I didn't understand at first; why wouldn't my best friend come with me? Mycroft explained, told me there'd be other children there too. I scrunched up my nose. They'd all love Redbeard, I was sure of it, but they wouldn't love him as much as I did. They wouldn't understand him like I did. Mycroft smiled but I thought he looked sad for a moment. No, he said, the other children wouldn't understand. I decided I would remember everything that happened at school and I'd tell Redbeard all about it every day when I came home. I soon learned that Redbeard would listen to me the way nobody at school would. 

One day Mycroft was with the driver who came to pick me up from school. He sat in the back with me. I was excited; it felt like an adventure. I asked Mycroft where we were going but he didn't answer. He just looked out of the window. I wondered why he seemed so odd. Sometimes I could sort of tell what Mycroft was thinking. He was very good at hiding things but he sometimes let me see. 

We weren't going home. I was getting nervous and I didn't like this adventure anymore. I asked Mycroft to tell me where we were going. He looked at me for a long time. I couldn't tell what he was thinking that time, he didn't let me see. Then he smiled that sad smile and looked away. I was very worried as he softly explained. 

The vet was one who'd helped Redbeard before. He looked very sad too. He let me hug my best friend and say goodbye. Then he took Redbeard away. I stood there with Mycroft, Redbeard's collar in my hand. I tried to be grown-up like Mycroft but I couldn't stop myself from starting to cry. I slipped my other hand into Mycroft's, and he let me. 

I held his hand so he could take me home. 

**2.**

The words hurt more than the bruises and cuts. Freak. That word hurt the most. I pretended it didn't hurt but it did. 

I got into fights a lot. I refused to let them just say those things without giving it back to them, and it often spilled over into scuffles after school. I learned I could hurt them back, deducing their secrets as loudly as I could. For a while they left me alone. But it never lasted. 

Being the youngest boy in my year I already stood out. Being the most intelligent in my class and unafraid to show how clever I could be just made it worse. I walked around with a great big target painted on my back. 

It didn't help that I grew into a skinny, clumsy boy. The other boys grew tall too but they played sports and gained muscles and grew out of their puppy fat. I simply grew tall and lanky, all long limbs. They'd get tanned and warm from playing rugby out on the pitches. I stayed pale and freckled even in the sun.

It seemed I was destined to be different in every way possible. I hated it. I hated not fitting in anywhere almost as much as I hated that a small part of me always wanted to fit in. To play rugby, to laugh and joke around, to have friends. To have a best friend again. Just someone to talk to, who'd listen to me. I hated how much I let myself hate everything that was unique about me. I treasured my mind as much as I loathed it. 

One day I decided to simply not let it hurt me. I locked away the hurt in a deep, dark place in the palace I was building inside my head. I fought back as best I could; my sharp tongue cut ribbons from their leader. Then came the blows. I fought back as best I could. 

I ended up sneaking away and walking home instead of getting in the car that came to collect me every day. It wasn't really that far. I ignored the ache in my side where I knew there would be bruises forming in the shape of their shoes. I'd lost my bag somewhere in the school grounds but I still had my violin case. I clutched it to my chest as I walked, following my favourite route back to the house. 

When I reached the gates I stopped. I didn't want to go in yet. My shirt was torn, my lip had stopped bleeding, my violin was scratched but intact, but my bow had been snapped in two. I don't know why I carried it with me when it was irreparably broken. 

Mycroft's driver pulled up beside me and Mycroft got out of the car. He frowned as he took in my dishevelled appearance, the bruises and grazes. My broken bow hung loosely from my fingers. He didn't comment on my tear-stained face. He turned to his driver and waved him by. Then he turned and started walking with me through the gates and up to the house. 

I let him take me home.

**3.**

I'm not sure how it happened but somehow I managed to make a friend. It started with that bloody dog. Horrid, happy little thing. It didn't belong to Victor, he was walking it for a friend. He seemed almost as annoyed as me when it attached itself to my foot in the quad that day. 

He came rushing over to apologise and grabbed its collar to put the lead back on. I said something scathing and he laughed. I gaped at him for a second before regaining control of myself. He invited me for coffee and I accepted, not really thinking about it. 

From there we became friends. He was doing business and law, subjects I scrunched my nose up at. He laughed again and asked what I was studying. He seemed impressed when I told him I was reading chemistry and asked about my labs and projects. He was reasonably intelligent and mostly able to follow what I was saying. We talked for quite a while and I found myself feeling a little disappointed when he said he had to go. He took the dog and started walking away, then suddenly he stopped and came back to me. He asked where I was living and I indicated I was on the other side of campus. He nodded and asked me which building, saying he would come and visit me. Check on your foot, he added, winking at me. A flush spread across my cheeks and I nodded dumbly, staring at my feet. He laughed again and clapped a hand on my shoulder before he left. I could feel the heat of his hand there for the rest of the day. 

The first time he kissed me I was startled and froze. He pulled back and laughed at my confusion, then took my hand. He told me we could go a bit slower but he very much wanted to kiss me again. I let him. This time I was ready for it, and I didn't freeze up. 

I suppose you could say we dated a little but he never kissed me or held my hand outside of my room. And I hardly ever made the trip to the other side of campus to visit him in his room. He said it was more convenient to spend time together in my room as I lived pretty much by myself. I saw no reason to disagree. 

The first time we got stoned together we were sitting on my bedroom floor. He passed me the joint and I took a deep hit. It made me a bit giggly and silly, and Victor laughed. We did it again a few more times, then Victor told me he could get us a much better high. I don't remember where he got the cocaine from but I do remember feeling better than I had in years. 

We got high together regularly after that. At Christmas Victor said he was staying on campus. His family were skiing in the Alps for the holidays. I didn't bother to tell Mycroft I would be staying on campus instead of going back to the house. 

Victor and I spent the first couple of days of the holidays just spending time together. We'd known each other for a couple of months by then, and I could tell Victor was getting impatient with me. So when he kissed me I responded enthusiastically. When he unbuttoned my shirt I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything more than kissing, but I wanted him to stay, so I let him. Afterwards, he got up and went to the bathroom. I was a bit cold so I crawled into bed. I slept for a while. 

When I woke up I was alone in my room. Victor had left me a note. He was changing courses and would be moving to the US as soon as the holidays were over. I left my bed and went to his halls. His room was empty. 

I wandered around London for a while, playing with Victor's note in my pocket. It was cold and wet. I wanted to forget. I didn't know Victor's dealer on campus but I was confident I could find a substitute in the city. 

I managed three days before Mycroft came to collect me. He said nothing, just helped me to stand and took me out to his car. I didn't want his help and I pushed him away. I tried to walk away but I hadn't eaten since the last day with Victor. Mycroft helped me up and for a moment I let myself pretend I was small again. 

I asked him to take me home. 

**4.**

He never understood, not really. I expect he was disappointed. I could've been like him. Aloof. Not letting emotion rule my actions. The Ice Man, as I later heard. But I wasn't like him. I tried to be, but I failed. 

Mycroft didn't understand why I needed the high, but he still tried to find me. I'd dropped out of my course weeks before, unable to concentrate on my studies. I didn't want to continue anyway. I needed something else to stimulate my mind, to stop me tearing myself apart. The cocaine helped. That's what Mycroft couldn't understand. 

I stumbled onto the crime scene by accident, but standing there seeing so many details that the police were missing, they were so obvious but the police were missing every single clue, I had to intervene. At the time I didn't realise I had been shouting my deductions at the top of my lungs. I found out that night that the back of police vans are most uncomfortable. 

I was still high when the sergeant who'd arrested me came to talk to me. He asked how I'd known it was the brother not the husband. I explained about the mud in the tread of the shoes and the ink stain on his fingers. The sergeant listened to me and took some notes. Then he told me they were going to charge me for what they'd found in my pocket. I glared at him as he calmly outlined the charges. He shrugged and took me back to be processed. As he shut the heavy door of the holding cell his brown eyes softened. He told me not to waste that wonderful mind, that it was a gift to be able to see so much so clearly, and I should find a better use for myself. I snorted, dismissing him. He sighed, but his words stuck in my head. They were the first kind words I'd heard in a long time. 

Mycroft must've smoothed things over because I was never actually charged. Not that time, or the next time Sgt Lestrade picked me up. That time he told me that he was glad I was trying to find purpose but I needed to do it sober, for fuck's sake. 

I couldn't. Not then. That time I saw Mycroft in the station, talking quietly to Lestrade. That worked out for me in the end. But I sank lower first. 

I don't think I was trying to die but I did a good job of almost achieving it. That was the first time Mycroft had found me himself. I was lying on a grotty mattress in a shitty room in some dilapidated house in the arse end of an awful neighbourhood. Mycroft didn't say anything as he sat down beside me, he just picked up the belt I used and tossed it into the corner. I was barely aware of anything, just a presence somewhere nearby. As I shivered and we waited for the ambulance, I realised who it was. I looked up and saw him sitting there, watching me. 

It occurred to me that he was still dressed for the office. My brother, well on his way to becoming the British government, sitting on the grimy floor of a junkie squatter's flat, in his expensive three-piece suit, his already ubiquitous umbrella propped against the wall. I felt an absurd urge to laugh raucously. When I opened my mouth the sound I made was much closer to a sob than a laugh. 

I heard him shift and dropped my head back down, closing my eyes. I ignored the tears. He sighed. It sounded like my name. I noticed a warmth pressing gently onto my ankle. It felt like a hand. 

I wanted to explain. I wanted him to see. I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted the quiet to come back and consume me. I wanted to never feel like this again. I wanted him to make it all stop. 

I wanted him to take me home. 

**5.**

Panting and desperate, I ran through the woods. I had miscalculated somewhere, I thought bitterly. I could hear the dogs barking behind me and the men's voices shouting instructions as they tracked me through the dark. Frantically I tried to make a plan but I was exhausted, thirsty and still bleeding from that last whipping. My bare feet slid on the wet leaves and I fell into the mud. 

I scrambled up and took off running again. I stumbled and fell again, hard. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out. I could still hear voices but I was more afraid of being caught by the dogs. My back was already infected, I could feel the heat of it trapped beneath my skin. I didn't need to add a disgusting bite wound to the wreck of my body. 

I tried to escape the woods with no plan as to where I'd go, I was just trying to get away. They surrounded me and I was taken back to the bunker. Dragged down the stairs, my dirty feet scraping along the concrete as they chained my ankle to the floor of my cell. They tossed in a bottle of water and slammed the door. I could hear the voices retreating and I gave in to my thirst. I threw up the first few mouthfuls of water as I tried to gulp it down. I forced myself to calm down and take small sips. I didn't know when I'd next get water so best to conserve it. I curled up in the corner, trying to retain some warmth so I could sleep. I closed my eyes and retreated to my mind palace. 

The wing containing all my memories of John is always warm. Soft light pours through the curtains. I trail my fingers over the wallpaper in the sitting room. Its rough texture is so familiar and I compare it to the feel of the afghan that sits over the back of John's chair. The wool is comforting and smells of John. 

He stands in the middle of the room, a fond smile on his face as he watches me examining the details of this 221B. He is always here, waiting for me. 

I walk over to him and he takes me into his arms. I pull him close to me and he buries his face in my shoulder. I rest my cheek on top of his head. We fit together so perfectly. He says my name and strokes my back gently. Just a little longer, he says. Just a little longer, then we can have this. I close my eyes and breathe him in. He holds me. That's all I need to keep going. John holding me in his arms.

It was always with that thought that I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes and rubbed my face, my fingers came away wet. 

They came for me not long after I woke. Then the next day. And the next day. 

My thoughts and my memories became cloudy. After one especially long beating I found myself thinking of my brother. I wondered if he knew I was being held. I hoped so. It had been a long time since I'd acknowledged that I needed him, but as the despair of ever making another escape attempt climbed up my throat and threatened to choke me, I wished for Mycroft to come to me like he had so many times when we were young. I thought of Redbeard, my violin, Victor. John. I thought of John. Just a little longer. 

The next time they came for me I spoke to the one beating me and I managed to distract him enough for him to leave. There was another one in the room. He crossed over to me and lent down to speak directly into my ear. The voice was so familiar and in my relief I hardly registered the words. I smiled. 

Mycroft would take me home. 

**+1.**

I stood gazing down at the grass beneath my feet. I'd been here before, hiding amongst the trees. It seemed so long ago now. 

So much had changed. I felt numb. Something inside me had broken. I wanted to be angry, I wanted to scream and rage. But I couldn't. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen. 

Rationally I knew something like this was possible. But he always seemed invincible. I remember thinking that even when I was little, how he would always be here with me. He'd said so, in fact. Just the other day. I'll always be here for you, Sherlock. He'd said that. How could he be gone?

I had so many questions. How did I let this happen? Why him? How could he leave me like that? What was I supposed to do now?

John came up to stand beside me. I don't know how long I'd been standing there but I couldn't stop staring at Mycroft's name, carved neatly into the marble in front of me. 

"I'm here, love," John murmured, slipping his hand into my pocket and interlacing his fingers with mine. I have never loved him as much as I did in that moment. 

We stood there until I was ready. Then I let John take me home.


End file.
